The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has allotted a spectrum of bandwidth in the 60 GHz frequency range (57 to 64 GHz). The Wireless Gigabit Alliance (WiGig) is targeting the standardization of this frequency band that will support data transmission rates up to 7 Gbps. Integrated circuits, formed in semiconductor die, offer high frequency operation in this millimeter wavelength range of frequencies. Some of these integrated circuits utilize Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS), Silicon-Germanium (SiGe) or GaAs (Gallium Arsenide) technology to form the dice in these designs. Since WiGig transceivers use carrier frequencies in the range of 60 GHz, the electromagnetic field of an inductor can transfer these high frequency signals into other circuit components of the system design causing undesirable effects. These effects can impact the performance and behavior of receiver and transmitter units. The undesirable coupling of the inductor's electromagnetic field needs to be carefully monitored and minimized, if possible, to reduce these undesirable effects.
CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor) is the primary technology used to construct integrated circuits. N-channel devices and P-channel devices (MOS device) are used in this technology which uses fine line technology to consistently reduce the channel length of the MOS devices. Current channel lengths examples are 40 nm, the power supply of VDD equals 1.2V and the number of layers of metal levels can be 8 or more. This technology typically scales with technology.
CMOS technology delivers a designer with the ability to form very large system level design on one die known as a System On a Chip (SOC). The SOC are complex systems with millions, if not billions, of transistors which contain analog circuits and digital circuits. The analog circuits operate purely analog, the digital circuits operate purely digital and these two circuits types can be combined together to form circuits operating in a mixed-signal.
For example, digital circuits in their basic form only use digital logic and some examples can be a component comprising at least one; processor, memory, control logic, digital I/O circuit, reconfigurable logic and/or hardware programmed that to operate as hardware emulator. Analog circuits in their basic form only use only analog circuits and some examples can be a component comprising at least one; amplifier, oscillator, mixer, and/or filter. Mixed signal in their basic form only use both digital and analog circuits and some examples can be a component comprising at least one: DAC (Digital to Analog Convertor), Analog to Digital Converter (ADC), Power Supply control, Phase Lock Loop (PLL), and/or device behavior control over Process, Voltage and Temperature (PVT). The combination of digital logic components with analog circuit components can appear to behave like mixed signal circuits; furthermore, these examples that have been provided are not exhaustive as one knowledgeable in the arts understands.
The SOC can generate a large amount of inductive noise that couples through parasitic reactances formed between the metal layers of closely packed inductors and could become a hostile environment for critical analog circuits. Analog designers attempt to minimize this form of noise coupling using any know means in the art, if possible.
Transceivers comprise at least one transmitter and at least one receiver and are used to interface to other transceivers in a communication system. One version of the transmitter can comprise at least one of each: DAC, LPF (Low Pass Filter), mixer, local oscillator, power amplifier and interface port that are coupled forming a RF (Radio Frequency) transmit chain. One version of the receiver can comprise at least one of each: interface port, LNA (Low Noise Amplifier), mixer, BB (Base Band) amplifier, LPF and ADC that are coupled forming a RF receive chain. Furthermore, each RF transmit and receive chains can operate on an in-phase (I) signal and the quadrature-phase (Q) signal simultaneously.
One of the critical design parameters of a transceiver occurs between the coupling of magnetic flux between inductors between different sections of the transmit chain. Various methods and circuits as are well known in the art can be used to minimize the magnetic coupling, for example, by increasing the physical displacement of the inductors from one another. However, the increased distance between the inductors introduces additional capacitance which reduces the bandwidth of the transceiver, causes valuable real estate of silicon area to be used and requires extra power consumption to drive the larger capacitive loads. Another solution to overcome this problem is required.